Behind closed doors at the UN’s attempted “takeover of the Internet”

Conflicting visions for the future of the Internet collide in Dubai.

Eli Dourado is a research fellow with the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a co-founder of WCITLeaks, and a member of the US delegation to the WCIT. The views expressed here are his own.

DUBAI, UAE—In early December, I found myself in an odd position: touching down in Dubai with credentials to attend a 12-day closed-door meeting of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). It's a meeting I spent the last six months trying to expose.

Though the world had been assured that WCIT would not attempt to mount a “UN takeover of the Internet,” that was in many ways what happened. As the conference ended, I watched US Ambassador Terry Kramer abandon months of preparatory work and almost two weeks of intense negotiations to announce, as his words echoed through hundreds of headsets in six languages, that the US simply would not sign the resulting deal.

“Mr. Chairman, as head of the US Delegation, I wanted to start out and thank you for your tireless work and leadership,” Kramer said. “Your personal commitment to a successful outcome here is very impressive. However, I do need to say that it's with a heavy heart and a sense of missed opportunities that the US must communicate that it's not able to sign the agreement in the current form.”

He went on to say the adopted treaty text was incompatible with the existing multistakeholder model of Internet governance. Internet policy, he said, “should not be determined by Member States, but by citizens, communities, and broader society, and such consultation from the private sector and civil society is paramount. This has not happened here.”

Fifty-four other countries took the same position, drawing sharp battle lines over the Internet and its future governance.

How did a “consensus-driven” UN process that would not, we were told, involve the Internet end up this way?

Sticky wicket

When I first heard about the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) early in 2012, I understood it vaguely as the event at which the United Nations would try to “take over the Internet.” But the experts I met with soon admitted they didn’t know what would happen at the WCIT (wicket, as they pronounced it).

Eli Dourado.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency convening the meeting, vigorously denied that the conference would have anything to do with the Internet at all. The purpose of the meeting, claimed ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, was simply to update the treaty that governs international phone calls; it had last been revised in 1988, when most phone companies were state-owned monopolies. Claims that the conference would implicate the Internet were part of a misinformation campaign pursued by unnamed opponents of the ITU, Touré said. In any case, the ITU was just a convener of the WCIT, and actual decisions would be made by member states on a non-voting, consensus-driven basis. The ITU, it was said, had no agenda of its own.

Because the proposals for the updated treaty stayed secret, however, the public had no way to judge the claims of the ITU and its critics. On a Tuesday morning in June, my colleague Jerry Brito stopped by my office and said, “We have to make a leaks site for WCIT proposals. We can call it WCITLeaks!” Armed with the perfect name, we spent the rest of the day putting together a site where insiders could anonymously upload documents related to the WCIT.

We launched on Wednesday and, within hours, we had our first leak—a draft of the new treaty containing several options for revisions to each provision, including some that addressed Internet issues. The next day, we received the infamous ETNO proposal drafted by European telecom giants, which would have applied the “sender-pays” rule from telephone service to Internet data transfers. A few days later, we posted a compilation of every single proposal that had been made so far.

The increased transparency did have an effect on the ITU. A mere two weeks after we launched our site, Touré announced that he would recommend making WCIT-related documents public—a recommendation largely rejected by the ITU Council, which released a single document that was already available on WCITLeaks. The additional transparency also had an effect on some ITU member states, which simply withheld their most heinous proposals until the conference neared. Not until mid-November, for instance, did Russia put forth its proposed revisions. These contained an entire new article called “Internet.”

Off to Dubai

In the meantime, I began to participate in State Department public consultations about the WCIT. By merely expressing enough interest, I was eventually allowed to join the US delegation and travel with them to Dubai. The US government never expressly condoned WCITLeaks’s activities, but it never expressly condemned them, either.

The first few days of the conference were mostly, for me, spent figuring out how everything worked. The highest-level meeting was the Plenary, which established several committees, of which Committee 5 (COM5) did the substantive work of revising treaty text. As a result of criticism over transparency, Plenary and COM5 meetings were webcast and open to those who only had observer status.

WCIT was not going to be about the Internet, but there we were, halfway through the conference, and the Internet was still on the table.

COM5 established two working groups that split up the treaty text between them; these meetings were not webcast or open to unaffiliated attendees. Fortunately, as an official member of a delegation, I was able to attend them.

At each official meeting, the name of the game was consensus. Where consensus could not be reached on a particular issue, an ad hoc group was created to deal with that issue. The ad hoc group would spend additional time trying to forge a consensus. If a particular meeting could not find language that every member state could agree to, it would report back to the next-highest level meeting with the contentious text in square brackets.

The first five days of the conference followed a pattern. Any issue not immediately agreed to on the first day was referred to COM5. Any issue not immediately agreed to in COM5 was referred to a working group, which referred them to ad hoc groups. Because there was little consensus, the ad hoc groups reported back to the working groups with proposals that were filled with brackets, and this bracketed text likewise worked its way back up through COM5 to the Plenary.

Everyone grew frustrated and tired. After working long hours each day, text was beginning to trickle back up to Plenary still laden with brackets, and it was clear that consensus would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach. The US pleaded for everything to be handled in Plenary, rather than cascading down and back up through the chain of groups with little progress.

Amid this frustration, host country United Arab Emirates (UAE) dropped a bombshell. It announced that it was putting forward a new “multi-regional common proposal,” a complete rewrite of the treaty to substitute for all the bracketed text we had worked on. It had support from numerous member states. Bahrain, Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Oman all expressed support for the document, which was not yet available for inspection.

The US delegation went to bed on Friday evening still not having seen the new document. It was not available in the ITU’s document system, despite promises from the UAE to submit it immediately following the Friday Plenary. On Saturday morning, I heard from a few people that they had seen it in paper form. Finally, around noon on Saturday, WCITLeaks received and posted a version of the multi-regional proposals.

The document indicated that it was to be submitted jointly by Russia, UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, and Egypt. It read like a compilation of the most objectionable proposals—it would have nationalized key aspects of Internet governance, including naming and numbering (currently handled by the nongovernmental ICANN), and it created new member state obligations with respect to Internet security. Despite the ITU’s claims that WCIT was not going to be about the Internet, there we were, halfway through the conference, and the Internet was still on the table.

The WCITLeaks version of the multi-regional proposal began to circulate widely among delegates from all countries. Within minutes of posting it, people sitting near me told me that they were receiving e-mails that linked to the document. With the document available for anyone to read, at least one delegation grew worried. By 4:30pm, WCITLeaks received a tweet from an Egyptian delegate saying, “On behalf of the Head of the Egyptian Delegation, we would like to announce that Egypt never supported that proposal.”

On Sunday afternoon, the ITU announced via Twitter that the multi-regional proposal had been withdrawn. At the next Plenary meeting, on Monday night, Egypt distanced itself further:

Egypt would like to clarify its position with regards to the unofficial multi-country draft proposal regarding the review of the ITRs. That was submitted—that was circulated back last Saturday.

This document has spread unofficially, and we notice that it contains the name of Egypt among its proponents. Egypt would like to reiterate that we never supported this document...

Egypt has always supported and will continue to support the concepts of free Internet and has exerted all efforts to develop the Internet and its wide spread among its citizens. Content Regulation and censorship are not within the scope of ITRs [International Telecommunications Regulations].

With that statement, which was met by applause, the multi-regional proposal looked dead—and the Internet seemed safer.

96 Reader Comments

I'm really confused after reading this. I see word "internet" many times, but have no idea what objectionable items would lead to a "takeover" of said internet. By who? How? When? Why? The article answers none of these questions, merely raising them as important problems with no context. Please, provide some of these answers for those who haven't spent the time reading the proposals themselves.

I'm really confused after reading this. I see word "internet" many times, but have no idea what objectionable items would lead to a "takeover" of said internet. By who? How? When? Why? The article answers none of these questions, merely raising them as important problems with no context. Please, provide some of these answers for those who haven't spent the time reading the proposals themselves.

As the piece notes, one of the main issues was the proposal to give nation-states control over Internet naming and numbering within their territory. This would essentially remove the non-governmental ICANN (which has sometimes been criticized, however, or being too close to the US Commerce Dept) and shift the current "multistakeholder" model of governance to one where governments largely set and implement their own Internet policies. There were also concerns about vaguely worded surveillance and security sections, and--more broadly--the wisdom of doing any of this through the ITU, which has never handled such issues.

Everything was going bad, it went to being acceptable by most nations, then the Africa Group proposed something bad (backed by Iran, Iraq, China and friends) which in turn made it unacceptable to 55 nations such as the members of the EU.--

All in all, it was sheer luck this wasn't signed by the EU and I'm pretty disappointed in that, but at least they refused to sign it in the end...until next time.

I would just like to say a Thank You to the US Delegation for standing up for its citizens. I don't think anyone who understood what was going on there wanted the ITU to take over the Internet, even if a little, and I'm glad that the ambassadors US stood their ground.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

The US invented the Internet, and many of the technologies used in the Internet were developed by US Citizens. I have no problem with the US as a nation controlling technologies that we invented. Yes, the Internet has become international in scope, but as US citizen, I think that we can and should make every reasonable attempt to maintain control over assets that are crucial to our own infrastructure and economy.

To put another way: what is in it for us to let others take control over those assets? I can't think of any way that it makes America stronger, and lots of ways it makes us weaker.

I apologize in advance for this, because on the whole I really did appreciate the article. But...

Article wrote:

The Secretary-General argued that there was not consensus on the issue and they should move on. But the way he said it suggested that this had been rehearsed. As if on cue, a number of additional countries spoke in favor of the proposal, including Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Togo, China, Sudan, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Burundi.

That paragraph reeks of paranoia. Perhaps you had legitimate reasons for feeling it was orchestrated, but they were not at all communicated in the article.

I thought I was reading a Tom Clancy novel :-) Quite interesting to have an even limited view about how international politics work at the very highest level.

As a non-US citizen I strongly disagree with those who think the US should exert considerable influence over the Internet. My sense of justice just doesn't agree with a single country having that much power. However, common sense says to just keep countries like China, Iraq, Iran and a Russia that apparently wants to take up the role of the old USSR as far away as possible from the Internet. For all it's flaws, I trust the US more than most other countries.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

I said a similar thing last time there was an article about this. The fact that US has this amount of control over the internet is not good, but the parallel universe in which countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or China have the control is so so much worse that I can't even begin to imagine it. Sure, it's the choosing of a lesser evil, but it really doesn't even begin to compare. I don't think anybody would describe these countries as democratic (even though I guess Russia is on paper)--the US still has quite a bit to deteriorate before it comes to that level.

On another note, how would ITU "take" control of internet. Who would they actually take it from and how? What gives them the right to do so? I'm asking this seriously and would appreciate if somebody can explain this who is more versed in the matter.

I thought I was reading a Tom Clancy novel :-) Quite interesting to have an even limited view about how international politics work at the very highest level.

As a non-US citizen I strongly disagree with those who think the US should exert considerable influence over the Internet. My sense of justice just doesn't agree with a single country having that much power. However, common sense says to just keep countries like China, Iraq, Iran and a Russia that apparently wants to take up the role of the old USSR as far away as possible from the Internet. For all it's flaws, I trust the US more than most other countries.

In principle I more or less agree with you (I'm a US Citizen), but the biggest problem is keeping countries and people and mega-corps who would simply pervert the inclusive, multi-stakeholder nature of the current governance structure. Right now, I don't see a workable way to do that.

On another note, how would ITU "take" control of internet. Who would they actually take it from and how? What gives them the right to do so? I'm asking this seriously and would appreciate if somebody can explain this who is more versed in the matter.

I don't know. Doing something crazy like establishing brand new root servers and walling off a separate Internet for Russia, China and other banana republics and then link that to the existing Internet? It probably could work. Hopefully without breaking what we already have but knowing how well organized the countries are who tend to support this entire thing it would probably come all crashing down on them. A bad person might see some good in that however: those countries are getting too powerful compared to the old Western allies from the Cold War and a decent economic recession might be good for us. But that's not nice. Just saying...

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

Very much this. A more international alternative would be better, but it does need to be independent of governments. I don't think we're going to get that anytime soon.

A la the UN? We see how well that works - one country on the Security Council can veto an action or resolution many countries put together and worked on, and if a country doesn't like something, it can take its autonomy and go home.

Don't get me wrong, though - a working UN where resolutions can compel countries to behave more humanely would be a good thing for the world.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

The US invented the Internet, and many of the technologies used in the Internet were developed by US Citizens. I have no problem with the US as a nation controlling technologies that we invented. Yes, the Internet has become international in scope, but as US citizen, I think that we can and should make every reasonable attempt to maintain control over assets that are crucial to our own infrastructure and economy.

To put another way: what is in it for us to let others take control over those assets? I can't think of any way that it makes America stronger, and lots of ways it makes us weaker.

Pretty bold statement about the US inventing the internet. They developed many of the commercialized products and services, but it was CERN who developed the need to transfer large amounts of data to many different institutes for analysis.

I don't think that we need the likes of ruling regimes in Russia, UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, and Egypt (?), trade representatives or old media controlling the Internet. In many ways these guys are part of the past and seem to be trying to lock mankind into that past. They really want to stop the future.

Thanks for this article. A service to thinking people who care about our Interwebs. I haven't seen a mention of this on the Australian mass media. (To me that marks them as part of the problem.)

These guys are not going to stop. The opposition should be implacable and ready to last while sentient beings exist.

Why would the vote have been close if it wasn't for Africa overreaching? It was stated many times before the conference that it was not going to be about the internet at all. We were all paranoid, right?

All of the sudden it was about the internet. Once the internet was brought up and inserted in the document, it should have ended the discussion right there.

Do not let the likes of China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia even get their foot in the door in any discussion dictating on how the internet operates, no matter how innocent it might appear.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

The US invented the Internet, and many of the technologies used in the Internet were developed by US Citizens. I have no problem with the US as a nation controlling technologies that we invented. Yes, the Internet has become international in scope, but as US citizen, I think that we can and should make every reasonable attempt to maintain control over assets that are crucial to our own infrastructure and economy.

To put another way: what is in it for us to let others take control over those assets? I can't think of any way that it makes America stronger, and lots of ways it makes us weaker.

Pretty bold statement about the US inventing the internet. They developed many of the commercialized products and services, but it was CERN who developed the need to transfer large amounts of data to many different institutes for analysis.

Well, I believe the original ARPANET and DARPANET were largely responsible for most of the concepts and general lower level architecture of the internet, although it's obviously evolved quite a bit. CERNs needs likely influenced and advanced inter-net networking and intra-net networking, but it built upon the previous ARPANET/DARPANET. I could be missing some things, but I believe that's the fundamental parts of it.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

Thing is, though, the US doesn't. No one does. The infrastructure is by nature decentralized. What this means is that even while ICANN is physically located in the US, no one MUST obey its decisions. In a worst case scenario it's as simple as turning off the switches connecting to the transoceanic fiber to the US and start assigning numbers from somewhere else. Just as I can plug my laptop into your network and manually assign an IP that one of your machines already has, it's not a case of people being assigned IPs in the sense of DHCP (even with a static IP pre-set in it), but rather "here's your number, Joe, enter it in your settings."

There's some legitimacy to the concerns of US influence, especially with things like ICE's "Operation In Our Sites" and bullshit like the attacks on Wikileaks or Megaupload, or that kid they tried to extradite in the UK for a perfectly legal link site. That doesn't mean that the US controls things, though, as they CAN be cut out of the loop if things ever hit that point.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

The US invented the Internet, and many of the technologies used in the Internet were developed by US Citizens. I have no problem with the US as a nation controlling technologies that we invented. Yes, the Internet has become international in scope, but as US citizen, I think that we can and should make every reasonable attempt to maintain control over assets that are crucial to our own infrastructure and economy.

To put another way: what is in it for us to let others take control over those assets? I can't think of any way that it makes America stronger, and lots of ways it makes us weaker.

Pretty bold statement about the US inventing the internet. They developed many of the commercialized products and services, but it was CERN who developed the need to transfer large amounts of data to many different institutes for analysis.

Well, I believe the original ARPANET and DARPANET were largely responsible for most of the concepts and general lower level architecture of the internet, although it's obviously evolved quite a bit. CERNs needs likely influenced and advanced inter-net networking and intra-net networking, but it built upon the previous ARPANET/DARPANET. I could be missing some things, but I believe that's the fundamental parts of it.

You have the right of it, not the first-time poster. ALOHAnet is also worthy of note, though most particularly with regard to wireless networking and what became the 802.11x standards.

And as bold and callous as Tom's statement was, it's the exact one that should and needs to be asked. Why would any government willingly give up power in an exchange that is not a net gain? Unless some scenario can be built in which the US stands to gain more than it would lose by giving up what influence it has, then of course it has no incentive to do so. It sounds bad, but it's a simple fact that as long as we stand to benefit from the current situation, any change that isn't a net improvement for the US isn't going to be accepted without a fight; the same is true of any other government, which will always fight for its own interests first. It's simply human nature.

A more international alternative would be better, but it does need to be independent of governments. I don't think we're going to get that anytime soon.

A la the UN? We see how well that works - one country on the Security Council can veto an action or resolution many countries put together and worked on, and if a country doesn't like something, it can take its autonomy and go home.

Don't get me wrong, though - a working UN where resolutions can compel countries to behave more humanely would be a good thing for the world.

This is one reason why it needs to be independent of governments and especially politicians. An independent body that consulted widely with interested parties yet used some guiding principles to inform its ultimate decision would be ideal though maybe just a pipe dream (especially as there are many countries who want the internet to be less free from state control)..

ICANN is almost that body. If it were more independent of the US government and more international it would be a better organisation. Even as it currently stands its much better than this attempted power grab from one UN body.

Everything was going bad, it went to being acceptable by most nations, then the Africa Group proposed something bad (backed by Iran, Iraq, China and friends) which in turn made it unacceptable to 55 nations such as the members of the EU.--

All in all, it was sheer luck this wasn't signed by the EU and I'm pretty disappointed in that, but at least they refused to sign it in the end...until next time.

Not really; the EU had prior to the conference stated that its member states should not sign the treaty on matters of the Internet.

The article annoyed me for assuming that the EU member states would sign a treaty limiting the internet in this way. They had already declared that they would not. Non-EU nations may have signed it.

A directive comes from the EU Commission; not to sign on Internet changes came from the European Parliament. My country - Denmark - declared prior to the conference that they would not sign onto any changes on the Internet.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

The US invented the Internet, and many of the technologies used in the Internet were developed by US Citizens. I have no problem with the US as a nation controlling technologies that we invented. Yes, the Internet has become international in scope, but as US citizen, I think that we can and should make every reasonable attempt to maintain control over assets that are crucial to our own infrastructure and economy.

To put another way: what is in it for us to let others take control over those assets? I can't think of any way that it makes America stronger, and lots of ways it makes us weaker.

The best way to protect this crucial infrastructure and economy is to hand the keys to a trustworthy, independent agent. If there's one thing your nation's history should have taught you, it's that governments are not trustworthy.

I still think it's wrong that the US holds exclusive control over so many of the "keys" to the internet, but right now the alternative looks much, much worse.

The US invented the Internet, and many of the technologies used in the Internet were developed by US Citizens. I have no problem with the US as a nation controlling technologies that we invented. Yes, the Internet has become international in scope, but as US citizen, I think that we can and should make every reasonable attempt to maintain control over assets that are crucial to our own infrastructure and economy.

To put another way: what is in it for us to let others take control over those assets? I can't think of any way that it makes America stronger, and lots of ways it makes us weaker.

The best way to protect this crucial infrastructure and economy is to hand the keys to a trustworthy, independent agent. If there's one thing your nation's history should have taught you, it's that governments are not trustworthy.

You're missing his point, which I explained in another post. No GOVERNMENT will surrender power or control when such doesn't offer them a net gain in power, unless they're forced to. He wasn't making a value statement, or a "good of the people" statement, but rather a purely factual one: why would the US give up without a fight if doing so doesn't offer a ROI greater than the loss of that control? The answer is: they wouldn't.